Banner Weekend?

Jason Logan

Jason Logan

Bits
Unsolicited comments from my brother-in-law, who knows next to nothing about golf, while watching the RBC Heritage yesterday: Of eventual winner Wesley Bryan, he said, “Now that guy just looks like a golfer.” Of Bryan’s playing partner, Ian Poulter, he said, “And that guy just looks like a doofus.” Huh. Maybe he does know something about golf ×× We were on site early last week at the RBC Heritage for some SCOREGolf TV interviews and asked Abbotsford, B.C.’s Nick Taylor what his favourite public course in Canada is other than Ledgeview, where he and buddy Adam Hadwin honed their games. Taylor blanked on the spot, but came back to us 10 minutes later and asked to be mic’d up again because one had come to mind: Sandpiper GC in Harrison Mills, B.C. So there you go Sandpiper: Free plug from a PGA Tour winner. Nice guy, that Taylor ×× Not so nice? Bryson DeChambeau. Saw him give an equipment rep an earful on the range because he wasn’t happy with how he was hitting a wedge. This after making like Doc Brown of Back to the Future with all the gear he was strapping on before getting into the blocks. I get the feeling he’s not a favourite among his brethren ×× Did you see Peter Malnati’s ace at the RBC Heritage? Tell me you wouldn’t want Chad Campbell as your playing partner if you made a hole-in-one. Just look at the excitement from the big man.

Bites
I see where Lydia Ko parted ways with yet another caddie, Gary Matthews, which marked the ninth time she’s sacked a looper since she turned pro. That’s correct — ninth. And this time it came on the heels of a runner-up finish in Hawaii. So with Arnold Schwarzenegger out as Donald Trump’s replacement on Celebrity Apprentice maybe Ko can sub in next season to do some firing. Or, probably more accurately, maybe her parents can ×× Speaking of caddies, if I were carrying Jason Dufner’s bag when he pulled this stunt last week I would have walked right off the course and left him hanging. Disgusting disrespect from a man who looks downright miserable to be a professional golfer playing for millions of dollars each week ×× Not surprisingly, every player we talked to last week was excited about the team format at the upcoming Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Of course, those were players scheduled to compete in the event. You’d hear a different tune, I’m sure, from part-time guys who otherwise would have got into the tournament on their number — Canadian Brad Fritsch being a prime example — who are now being left out in the cold. The always astute Geoff Ogilvy rightly pointed out that some tweaks need to be made to the event because there is a concern among some that a player could finish inside the top 125 on the FedEx Cup by year’s end with a good result at the Zurich but one largely on the back of his playing partner. That, of course, could bump another player, one who may have actually had a better season, out.

Barbs
Well that could have been quite the week of Canadian golf, couldn’t it have? Stephen Ames on the PGA Tour Champions, Graham DeLaet on the PGA Tour and Alena Sharp on the LPGA Tour all with legitimate chances to win in the final rounds of their respective tournaments. A potential trifecta that would have marked the best weekend in the history of Canadian professional golf when it comes to quantity, with the major wins by Sandra Post, Mike Weir and Brooke Henderson still taking the cake when it comes to quality. In the end, only Ames prevailed, winning his first senior-circuit start in fairly comfortable fashion thanks to a final-round 66. Sharp, who started the day one off the lead and played in the penultimate pairing, carded a two-under-par 70 to finish fifth, the second-best result of her career. And DeLaet, who also started the day one off the lead and was in the final duo, dropped into a tie for sixth after a two-over 73. So how do we assess these results? Obviously Ames was on top of his game and to make back-to-back birdies the way he did on 14 and 15 with that tour’s best player, Bernhard Langer, closing in was classy stuff. While it may have taken Ames, the 2006 Players champion, longer to win against the old guys than some figured, he noted afterwards that life off the course — divorce, custody hearings — hasn’t been too smooth the last couple of years. Ames can be a bit prickly at times, but one thing I’ve observed since he started playing full time on the PGA Tour Champions is a more relaxed approach to the game. Seems he’s enjoying himself out there more than he ever did on the PGA Tour. Sharp expressed joy in her performance and rightly so. First, she and everyone else in contention simply got beat by the great play of Cristie Kerr. Second, after a career year last season Sharp hadn’t netted the results in 2017 that she was counting on and came into the Lotte Championship with three straight missed cuts. That said, she told me last week that she was very happy with her ball-striking and that, “Four weeks now I haven’t made putts, but maybe that means, hey, the next four weeks I’ll make everything. Golf is funny like that.” Well the putts started falling and Sharp righted the ship. She’s now 31st on the money list. Then there’s DeLaet, who Canadian golf fans will know has been in position to win a tournament heading into Sunday several times and has never brought his best stuff in that situation. That happened again at Harbour Town with some short-game woes rearing their ugly head again and a hooked three-wood into the hazard on the eighth hole leading to a triple-bogey. He’s taken his learning-curve lumps and then some, but I still think DeLaet will win on the PGA Tour at some point. His putting is as good as it’s ever been and he hits so many greens in regulation when he’s on form that his shaky pitching can be navigated. It just may be that DeLaet needs to build a really big lead heading into the final round to get it done and finally get that monkey off his back.

Obscure thought of the week: How come gas stations in the U.S. ask for a zip code?

Jason Logan

LOGAN'S ALLEY

Jason Logan is the editor of SCOREGolf Magazine and the co-host of SCOREGolf TV.

Steve
April 17, 2017 at 1:57 pm

Credit card readers at payment-automated gas pumps use the Address Verification System as a safe guard against fraud. It prompts customers to enter their ZIP codes which are cross-referenced with the billing addresses tied to the cards being used.

MasterCard has rolled out a fix for Canadians. When prompted, Canadians can now enter the three numbers in their postal code, and two zeroes.
So, if your postal code is A2B 3C4, you enter 23400.
(from The Globe and Mail)

At the risk of repeating myself, Graham DeLaet will win when he reaches the Seniors Tour, as he cannot play good golf for 4 days in a row. 3 days is his maximum before the mental aspect defeats him yet again. I said this years ago on here and was lambasted by the fan boys, but so far I have been on a correct hunch. Kudo’s to his talent, his incredible earnings thus far and the polite way he handles himself. I support him but have to be pragmatic about this.